Review of the goal scorers and the top scorers after the first round
The first round of the European Championships is now played and we go through the goal scorers here, a first follow-up on our tips from the top scorer in the European Championships 2021 here.Initial matches and goal scorers
The European Championships started with Turkey-Italy on Friday and we got off to a very good start of this year's European Championships. Italy owned Turkey who were to be honest pretty lousy and did not live up to the expectations many had for this Turkish team. The final score was 3-0 but could have been more. We had Ciro Immobile as one of the candidates to win the top scorer title of the tournament and he did score a goal in this match, and also had an assist.On Saturday, Belgium entered the tournament and also one of the big favorites to become the top scorer, Romelu Lukaku. Belgium did not allow Russia to create much in the game and won very comfortably with 3-0, and also very important, Lukaku scored two of the goals. A perfect start for Lukaku in other words and he directly advanced to the top of the top scorer list.
On Sunday, England played against Croatia and in England we have Harry Kane who is one favorites to win. Croatia is not an easy opponent though and Kane did not manage to score a goal in this match. However, Raheem Sterling did score and his goal resulted in a 1-0 win for England.
On Sunday, the tournament got its second two-goal scorer when the Czechs' talented striker Patrik Schick (playing for the German club Bayer Leverkusen) scored both goals in their 2-0 win against Scotland.
On Monday, Robert Lewandowski was supposed to start his scoring streak when Poland played Slovakia. Most people did see Poland as the big favorites in this match but Slovakia managed to win the match 2-1, partly thanks to Poland's Grzegorz Krychowiak being sent off at the score 1-1. And Poland's goal was not scored by Lewandowski, but by Karol Linetty, and he thus begins the tournament goalless.
And yesterday (on Tuesday) Portugal played their first game, so also Cristiano Ronaldo entered the tournament, against Hungary and as planned Portugal won with 3-0, and just as much by plan Ronaldo scored two of the goals (one on penalty) and thus became the third player to score two goals in the first round . Portugal, however, looked to go towards a 0-0 result and their first goal had to wait until the 83rd minute when Raphaël Guerreiro scored.
Later in the evening, the big game of the first round France-Germany was played, of course with two of the favorites Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann in the French team. The match ended 1-0 to the French, but the goal was scored through an own goal by Mats Hummel, and thus these two top scorer candidates left the pitch goalless.
So who is the favourite to become top scorer now?
Lukaku scored twice against tough opposition (especially considering that the match was played in Russia) and right now he is not unexpectedly the betting companies' favorite to win. The second two-goal scorer, Czech Patrik Schick, has of course strengthened his chances considerably but it will probably be hard for him to win considering his team is not strong enough.Our tip before it all started was Cristiano Ronaldo and we obviously see no reason to modify that after the first round. First Germany and then France are now waiting for Portugal, which of course is the toughest possible opposition, especially as Germany is now under pressure after the loss against France. But if there is any player in this world who can deliver under pressure and big matches it is Ronaldo, so we feel confident that he will score at least one goal during these matches and will then be in a good position to be the tournaments top goal scorer.
To be considered regarding Lukaku is that if Belgium beat Denmark tomorrow, it is not impossible that he will rest in their last pretty easy game against Finland as Belgium is probably already group winners. Ronaldo will probably not rest against Germany or France.
Of course, we also have a plethora of one-goal scorers after the first round, but apart from Immobile, it feels like there are few candidates that fight for the win in the end. The exception might be Holland's Georginio Wijnaldum. He does produce a lot of goals in the national team (more than in his club) and Holland can go far so we do raise a little warning flag regarding him, even though he is not a natural striker.
But this was of course only the first round of matches, there are certainly players who can score a hat trick in the second round and then we can have completely new conditions for the continuation...
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